The Written Word
for December 12, 2001

I have written and spoken a lot about the disappearance, not erosion, disappearance of our parliamentary system. This is not hyperbole – it is demonstrably so.

There are the twinned catastrophes.

First, through abuse of the party system and the electoral laws, the Prime Minister has grabbed all the power unto his office. Because the government can fall on an adverse vote – that’s only barely correct theoretically, by the way - the Prime Minister has been able to enforce party discipline. After all, who wants to lose an election?

But it is far deeper than that – the Prime Minister not only has it in his power to dispose promotions and gifts, he can also refuse to give party approval to any MP’s nomination. He has the power of political life and death over his caucus.

The other catastrophe – there are several actually, but I’ll deal with the main one – is that the Prime Minister no longer even bothers to ask Parliament for money. He simply takes it. In fact he doesn’t even bother going through the motions of presenting a budget, having the budget estimates examined by Parliament, then obtaining parliamentary approval. He simply has his captive caucus pass interim supply as from time to time is required.

These are outrages and most populations would be up in arms for half the aggravation. But Canadians love authority and like to believe that their leaders have the public’s best interest at heart and thus shouldn’t be criticized too much.

But a growing number of Canadians are getting more than just a little perturbed and they’re asking what they can do.

First, the problem. The House of Commons is made up of one man who matters, the Prime Minister, and 300 that don’t. Again, this is not hyperbole – it’s true. The 300 are divided amongst opposition members who can verbalize their constituents’ concerns but no more than that – and not much of that – and the government members who do exactly what the whips tell them to do. The whips are, of course, directly answerable to the Prime Minister.

Now, what are the solutions?

Well, one solution is to simply wait until things get so bad that the country crumbles. Can’t happen? Yes it can and I would argue that it’s inevitable. We cannot continue as we are, a nation that can’t change its constitution, governed by parties that won’t change their ways. Sooner or later we must have an implosion.

But another solution – and I offer no special hope that it will work – is for people to join political parties and form within them accountability committees that insist that MPs seize and regain the prerogatives that are theirs. Look at the Liberal members from BC. Have they uttered a peep about the loss of their rights, thus the rights of their constituents? Of course they haven’t. The pressures on them to go along are too great. There must be counter pressures placed on them by constituency organizations.

Why do I hold out no particular hope that this would work?

Because Liberal constituency organizations are very tightly run. The Prime Minister exercises such control that if there is trouble he will simply dispose of the executive and force the nomination of his chosen one.

Canadians are sleepwalking towards a catastrophe and seem unable if not unwilling to do anything to head it off.

That there will be a catastrophe is a lead pipe cinch – the only question is when.